Through 21 games this season, Arizona State has seen peaks and valleys in almost every facet of the game. The pitching staff had its woes before stringing together a few dominant performances. The bats have shown flashes of overwhelming power but have looked completely lost on some occasions.
While the rotation and situational pitching staff have remained mostly consistent, the lineups from head coach Willie Bloomquist remain in a constant state of disarray. The Sun Devils’ starting nine has seen shifts up and down the batting order in recent games, and the offensive consistency has suffered.
“Disappointing,” Bloomquist said of the team’s performance on Tuesday. “I thought we did enough to stay in the game on the pitching front, just the offensive performance was very lackluster and not intense the way we want to be. Some guys swinging the bats okay, but there was way too much inconsistency to put any type of rallies together. I was expecting a lot better.”
Redshirt junior second baseman Kyle Walker is the latest Sun Devil to step into the leadoff role. So far, he’s flourished as the frontman. The ASU keystone has hit 7-for-17 with four RBI since jumping from the bottom to the top of the lineup on Saturday at TCU.
Ask Walker, it’s not a huge deal.
“I think I’m an aggressive hitter,” Walker said. “[I] find the pitches early in the count that I think I can handle, and I did the same thing at the nine-spot. So nothing really changed; just stay aggressive.”
The reality is Walker has been an excellent table setter, but the spark has failed to trickle down to the rest of the lineup. Excluding ASU’s 26-run outburst at TCU last Saturday, the Sun Devils have struggled to bring runners across the plate in scoring positions. ASU hit 3-for-10 with runners in scoring position in Tuesday’s loss.
“I think we just take this loss off the chin,” Walker said. “We were a little flat today, but I think that’s going to change. We’re going to come out this weekend with guns blazing, ready to get after it. Kansas is a really good team, so we’re going to come out and give them our best every day.”
It’s not uncommon for a head coach to shuffle bench players in and out of the lineup to give regular starters a break during a long season. The Sun Devils trot out a plethora of middle infielders and have attempted to platoon a pair of fresh faces in the designated hitter spot. Two hitters who got off to a hot start, junior right fielder Kien Vu and freshman second baseman Beckett Zavorek, are missing in action with lower body injuries.
Alongside Walker, senior Matt King and sophomore Jax Ryan have frequently swapped out at shortstop. King also started the season at the bottom of the lineup, got hot, flew to the top, and now finds himself somewhere in the middle. Ryan, like many of the interchangeable pieces, has hit from the bottom third of the lineup.
On Friday night, it was that section of the lineup that worked the best. A combination of Ryan, freshman right fielder Landon Hairston, and sophomore catcher Brody Briggs collected five of the nine hits on the night for ASU.
“They’re doing everything they’re supposed to do,” Bloomquist said. “They’re setting the table for the top. We just got to cash in. You know, we’re getting guys on base and big boys coming up, and we’re just not cashing in when we have to, and that’s discouraging. We’re not coming up with that big hit when we need to as frequently as we’d like.”
The bottom line: A winning formula for the Sun Devils currently relies on consistent power in the lineup. The multitude of changes in the lineup has not allowed the offense to settle into a familiar role.
Still, the team remains optimistic that it can turn the page going forward and hit with greater consistency at the plate.
“I think baseball is a game of failure, and you just have to keep your head up,” Walker said. “It’s a new day every day and that’s the cool thing about baseball. You get to play the next day with a chance to be better and it’s an opportunity to get back on our feet and we’re going to be alright.”
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